French Pathfinders in North America Part 12

When the final start was made for the French settlements, there were seven hundred Indians in 360 canoes, with a proportionately large quant.i.ty of beaver-skins. A stop was made at the River of Sturgeons, to lay in a store of food against the voyage. In a few days over a thousand of these fish were killed and dried.

After they had started again, Radisson came near to parting unwillingly with the splendid fleet of canoes that he was guiding down to the French settlements. One day they espied seven Iroquois. So great was the dread of these formidable savages, that, though these seven took to their heels and {220} discarded their kettles, even their arms, in their flight, the sight of them threw the hundreds with Radisson into a panic. They were for breaking up and putting off their visit to Montreal for a year. Radisson pleaded hard, and, after twelve days of delay and powwowing, he succeeded in prevailing on all except the Crees to go on with him.

Down the St. Mary's River into Lake Huron the great fleet of canoes went in long procession. Then, the wind being favorable, everybody hoisted some kind of sail, and they were driven along merrily until they came to the portage. This pa.s.sed, they went on down the Ottawa River without misadventure as far as the long rapids. Then another panic seized the Indian fleet, this time on more reasonable grounds, for the party discovered the evidences of a slaughter of Frenchmen.

Seventeen of these, with about seventy Algonquins and Hurons, had laid an ambush here for Iroquois, whom they expected to pa.s.s this way.

Instead, the biter was bitten. The Iroquois, when they came, numbered many hundreds, and they overwhelmed and, after a desperate resistance, destroyed the little band of Frenchmen, with their allies. The appalling {221} evidences of this slaughter were terrible proof that the enemy were numerous in that neighborhood. Even Radisson and his brother were alarmed. They had much ado to persuade their Indian friends to go on with them. As last they succeeded and proudly led to Montreal the biggest canoe-fleet that had ever arrived there, "a number of boats that did almost cover ye whole River."

It was a great triumph for the two daring _voyageurs_ to bring to market such a volume of trade and many Indians from distant tribes who never before had visited the French.

They expected that this service would be recognized. Instead, the Governor put Groseillers in prison and fined both an enormous sum for going away without his leave. Incensed at this injustice, they determined on going to London and offering their services to the English King. This was the reason of Radisson's translating the notes of his travels into a language that was foreign to him, with such queer results as we have seen in the extracts that have been given.

[1] Dr. Reuben G. Thwaites in his "Father Marquette" quotes the following description, written by a Jesuit missionary about eight years after Radisson's visit: "What is commonly called the Saut is not properly a Saut, or a very high water-fall, but a very violent current of waters from Lake Superior, which, finding themselves checked by a great number of rocks, form a dangerous cascade of half a league in width, all these waters descending and plunging headlong together."

[2] It is interesting to learn that the whitefish, so much prized today, was held in equally high esteem so long ago, and even before the coming of the white men. The same writer quoted above by Dr. Thwaites tells of throngs of Indians coming every summer to the rapids to take these fish, which were particularly abundant there, and describes the method. The fisherman, he says, stands upright in his canoe, and as he sees fish gliding between the rocks, thrusting down a pole on the end of which is a net in the shape of a pocket, sometimes catches six or seven at a haul.

[3] The great steamers of to-day follow this route, which the Indian's bark canoe frequented hundreds of years ago. This ill.u.s.trates the interesting fact that, over all this continent, the Indians were the earliest pathmakers. Important railroads follow the lines of trails made by moccasined feet, and steamboats plough the waters of routes which the birch canoe skimmed for centuries.

[4] Undoubtedly it was one of these "sturgeons of a vast bignesse"

that, according to the legend, swallowed both Hiawatha and his canoe.

We are now in Hiawatha's country, and we are constantly reminded by Radisson's descriptions of pa.s.sages in Longfellow's beautiful poem.

[5] This little structure has a peculiar interest, because of its being, in all probability, the first habitation of white men on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Superior. It seems to have stood on Chequamegon Bay.

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Chapter XIII

ROBERT CAVELIER, SIEUR DE LA SALLE,

THE FIRST EXPLORER OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI

La Salle's Early a.s.sociation with the Jesuits.--His Domain in Canada.--He starts on an Exploring Expedition.--Disappears from View.--The Favor of Frontenac.--La Salle's Extraordinary Commission.--Niagara Falls.--The First Vessel ever launched on the Upper Lakes.--Great Hards.h.i.+ps of the Journey.--Arrival in the Country of the Illinois.--Fort Crevecoeur built.--Perilous Journey back to Canada.--La Salle starts again for the Illinois Country.--Iroquois Atrocities and Cannibalism.--La Salle goes as far as the Mississippi and returns.--Tonty's Perilous Experiences.--Boisrondet's Ingenuity saves his Life.--La Salle journeys down the Great River.--Interesting Tribes of Indians.--The Ocean!--Louisiana named.--Hards.h.i.+ps of the Return Journey.--Fort St. Louis built.

Robert Cavelier, more generally known as La Salle, at the first was connected with the Jesuits, but left the Society of Jesus and, at the youthful age of twenty-three, came to Canada to seek his fortune. He had an elder brother among the priests of St. Sulpice. These, being anxious to have a fringe of settlements outside of their own {226} as a sort of screen against Indian attacks, granted to La Salle a quite considerable tract a few miles from Montreal. Here he laid out a village surrounded by a palisade and let out his land to settlers for a trifling rent.

With a view to exploration, he at once began to study the Indian languages. Like Champlain and all the early explorers, he dreamed of a pa.s.sage to the Pacific and a new route for the commerce of China and j.a.pan. The name which to this day clings to the place which he settled, La Chine (China), is said to have been bestowed by his neighbors, in derision of what they considered his visionary schemes.

After two or three years La Salle, beginning his real life-work, sold his domain and its improvements, equipped a party, and started out into the wilderness. We trace his route as far as the Seneca country, in western New York. Then for two years we lose sight of him altogether.

This time he pa.s.sed among the Indians; and there is the best reason for believing that he discovered the Ohio River and, quite probably, the Illinois.

When Joliet and Marquette ascertained that the outlet of the Great Water was in the Gulf of {227} Mexico, their discovery put an end to the fond hope of establis.h.i.+ng a new route to East India and China by way of the Mississippi, but it inspired a brilliant thought in La Salle's mind. Why should France be shut up in Canada, with its poverty, its rigorous climate, its barren soil, covered with snow for half the year? Why not reach out and seize the vast interior, with its smiling prairies and thousands of miles of fertile soil, with the glorious Mississippi for a waterway? She already held the approach at one end, namely, through the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes. Let her go forward on the path which lay open before her. To realize this splendid dream became the purpose of his life.

The coming of Count Frontenac to Canada as its governor was a boon to La Salle. Both were essentially men of the world, with ambitions of their own. Both were strong men, daring, ardent, and resolute; and both heartily hated the Jesuits and were hated by them with equal fervor. Both, too, were men of small means who aimed at vast results.

In short, they were kindred spirits. But the one was Governor of Canada, and the other was an almost penniless adventurer. This fact determined their relations. La Salle {228} became a partisan of Frontenac, siding with him against certain fur-traders and the Jesuits.

Frontenac became the protector of La Salle, backing his schemes with his influence and giving him a strong recommendation to the King.

Now, Frontenac had built a fort near the lower end of Lake Ontario, about the site of Kingston. It had the look of being a great public benefit, for it would help to hold the Iroquois in check and it would cut off trade from the English. On these grounds the expense of building it was justified. But the Jesuits and the fur-traders were opposed to it, the fur-traders because they foresaw the loss of a large part of their trade. Indians bringing their annual canoe-loads of peltry to market would not take the long trip to Montreal and Quebec, if they could barter them off at a much nearer point. They suspected, with good reason, that this new fort, erected ostensibly for the defence of the country, was really meant to cut off from them the trade that came down the Lakes and turn it into the hands of the Governor and those who might be in secret league with him.

The feeling was very strong, and attempts were made to induce the King to have the {229} obnoxious fort demolished. Just then La Salle sailed for France with strong letters from Frontenac. Imagine the rage of his opponents when he returned not only master of the fort, but a t.i.tled man, the Sieur de La Salle, with the King's patent in his pocket giving him a princely grant of many square miles on the mainland and the adjacent islands!

But how was a needy adventurer to raise the money to pay for the fort and to do all the high-sounding things that he had promised the King?

He counted on raising money on the strength of his great expectations.

He was not disappointed. His friends and relatives rejoicing in his good fortune, which they naturally hoped to share, lent large sums of money to enable him to carry out his agreement with his royal master.

Now he began piling up a ma.s.s of debts that alone would have crushed a common man. He had, besides, a tremendous combination to fight, nearly all the merchants of the colony, backed by the influence of the Jesuits.

Still La Salle might have settled down in his seigniory, commanded his soldiers, lorded it over his colony, controlled the trade of the Lakes, paid off his debts, and have grown enormously rich {230} within a few years from the profits of the fur-trade. But he flew at higher game than money, and cared for it only as it might serve his ambition. He was dreaming of the Gulf of Mexico and in imagination ruling a Southwestern New France many times larger than the old.

Therefore he took s.h.i.+p again for France. This time he went crowned with success. He had done all and more than all that he had engaged to do. He had torn down the wooden fort and replaced it with one of stone, surmounted with nine cannon. He had erected a forge, a mill, a bakery, barracks, and officers' quarters. He had gathered about him a village of Iroquois, who were under the teaching of two Recollet friars. Some French families had been settled on farms. Land had been cleared and planted. Cattle, fowls, and swine had been brought up from Montreal. Four small vessels had been built for use on the lake and river. Altogether, French civilization was handsomely represented at this lonely outpost; and La Salle had shown what he was capable of doing as an organizer and ruler. Now he went to ask another grant.

Fancy the dismay of his opponents when he came back, in the following year, with an {231} extraordinary commission that gave him authority to "labor at the discovery of the western parts of New France, through which, to all appearance, _a way may be found to Mexico_." The last words show its true purpose. Louis aimed a blow at his enemy, Spain, the mistress of Mexico, and La Salle was the arm through which he meant to strike. The doc.u.ment gave him authority to build forts wherever he saw fit, and to own and govern them under the same conditions as Fort Frontenac. In short, he had a roving commission to go wherever he pleased between the eastern end of Lake Ontario and the borders of Mexico, and to exercise the authority of a royal governor anywhere in all that vast region. But he must do all at his own expense, and he must do it all within five years.

His most serious need was that of money. But, with his usual success in drawing other men's means into his schemes, he obtained a large sum, on which he was to pay interest at the rate of forty per cent. We can see that he was piling up debts fast enough to meet the wishes of his heartiest haters.

Now La Salle was in a position to enter on his grand undertaking, the dream to which he {232} devoted his life. His first step was to send a party of men ahead in canoes to Lake Michigan, to trade with the Indians and collect provisions against his coming, while another party, one of whom was the famous Father Hennepin, started in a small vessel up Lake Ontario, to await La Salle's coming at Niagara. In due time they reached the Niagara River, and the earliest published account of the great cataract is Father Hennepin's.[1]

This advance party had orders to begin a fort on the Niagara River, but the distrust of the Senecas proved to be an obstinate barrier. This famous tribe, occupying the Genesee Valley northward to the sh.o.r.e of Lake Ontario, while on the west its territory extended to Lake Erie, was fiercely jealous of white men's coming to plant themselves in their country.

When La Salle arrived, however, with his usual tact in managing Indians, he succeeded in securing their consent to his putting up, not a fort, but a fortified warehouse at the mouth of the Niagara River and building a vessel above the Falls.

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Now the first of a series of misfortunes befell him in the loss of the little vessel that had brought him to Niagara. She was freighted with the outfit for his great exploration and with goods for barter. But everything was lost, except only the anchors and cables intended for the vessel that was to be built. He bore the loss with his unvarying fort.i.tude.

At last all difficulties were so far overcome that the keel of the little vessel was laid. While the work was going on, Indians were hanging around watching it sullenly, and a squaw told the French that her people meant to burn it. The weather was cold, and the men of the party themselves had little heart in the enterprise. The loss of provisions in the wrecked vessel had put them on short allowance. Only the skill of two Mohegan hunters kept them supplied with food. It was hard work, too, for the builders needed to bring loads from the other vessel on their backs, a distance of some twelve miles.

In spite of all these difficulties, the little craft was finished, and, at the opening of the ice in the spring, there glided down into the Niagara the first keel that ever cut the water of the Upper Lakes, the forerunner of to-day's enormous {234} tonnage. Her figure-head was a mythical monster, and her name the "Griffin," both taken from Frontenac's coat of arms.

On August 7, the "Griffin" fired her cannon, spread her sails, and bore away up Lake Erie, carrying the expedition which La Salle hoped would make him master of the Mississippi Valley. The plan was to sail to the head of Lake Michigan, near the site of Chicago, then to march to the Illinois River; there to build another vessel, and in the latter to sail down the Mississippi, into the Gulf, and to the very West Indies--an enterprise of t.i.tanic audacity.

The first part of the voyage was delightful. We may wonder whether our voyagers saw one amazing sight which Jonathan Carver describes. "There are," he says, "several islands near the west end of it [Lake Erie] so infested with rattlesnakes that it is very dangerous to land on them.

The lake is covered, near the banks of the islands, with the large pond-lily, the leaves of which lie on the water so thick as to cover it entirely for many acres together; and on each of these lay, when I pa.s.sed over it, wreaths of water-snakes basking in the sun, which amounted to myriads!"

On the sh.o.r.e were verdant prairies and fine {235} forests. When the voyagers entered Detroit River they saw herds of deer and flocks of wild turkeys, and the hunters easily kept the party supplied with venison and bear meat. On they sailed, across Lake St. Clair and out upon Lake Huron, pa.s.sed within sight of the Manitoulins, and finally came to anchor in the cove of Mackinaw Strait, where were the famous trading-post and mission-station of Michillimackinac.

At Green Bay La Salle found some of his men who had remained faithful and had collected a large store of furs. This circ.u.mstance caused him new perplexity. He had furs enough to satisfy his creditors, and he was strongly moved to go back to the colony and settle with them. On the other hand, he dreaded leaving his party, which would surely be tampered with by his enemies. Should his strong hand be withdrawn, the party probably would go to pieces. Finally he decided to remain with the expedition and to send the "Griffin" back with her valuable cargo to Fort Niagara and with orders to return immediately to the head of Lake Michigan. It was an unfortunate decision. The vessel's pilot was already under suspicion of having treacherously wrecked the vessel which perished on Lake {236} Ontario. The "Griffin" sailed and never was heard of again. Whether she foundered on the lake, was dashed on the sh.o.r.e, or was plundered and scuttled, La Salle never knew. He believed the latter to have been the case. Her loss was the breaking of an indispensable link in the chain. But La Salle was still ignorant of it, and he went on his way hopefully to the head of Lake Michigan.

A hard time the men had in paddling the heavily laden canoes, subsisting on a scant ration of Indian corn, and at night dragging the canoes up a steep bank and making their cheerless camp. By the time that they reached the site of Milwaukee all were worn out.

They were glad enough when they saw two or three eagles among a great gathering of crows or turkey-buzzards, and, hastening to the spot, they found the torn carca.s.s of a deer, lately killed by wolves. However, as they neared the head of the lake, game became more abundant, and La Salle's famous Mohegan hunters had no difficulty in providing bear's meat and venison.

Winter was fast setting in, and La Salle was anxious to go on to the Illinois towns before the warriors should go away on their usual winter {237} hunting. But he was compelled to wait for Tonty, an Italian officer of great courage and splendid loyalty who had come out to America as his lieutenant. With twenty men, he was making his way by land down the eastern sh.o.r.e. At last he appeared, with his men half-starved, having been reduced to living on acorns. But where was the "Griffin"? This was the place appointed for her meeting with the expedition. But there were no tidings of her fate. After waiting as long as he could, La Salle, with heavy forebodings, pushed on.